I'm back!

I registered here a good while ago, but I was using my old Windows system and for some reason my computer would crash when I tried to interact with this site. Only a few sites would do that, but this one was really bad, to the point of a cold reboot.

Now, I have a pretty good little Dell Inspiron notebook, and I want to install Linux. There is a primary partition of 2.5G that is uninitialized and has no drive letter in Windows, so I'm thinking I could do a fairly decent install on that. What I'm wondering now is, has anyone else here gotten a Dell Inspiron with a similar setup, and if they installed Linux on that partition how did it turn out?

I've already downloaded and burned some CD's for a Linux distro, so I'm ready to boot from the CD and all that, I'm just worried that Dell had a reason for making that primary partition. If they did it just so people could use it to install another OS, that's great, but if not well, I don't know. I'm just hoping that someone else has done this and what kind of results they had. Any help will be appreciated!

G

2.5GB really isn't very much space to do a Linux install in. Also I suspect that partition is your restore partition. These days people like Dell generally don't give you all the software that comes with the machine on CD/DVD. What they do is put it on a 'hidden' partition and then if you need to restore the machine to factory condition you have to use what is in that partition. This practice is one I think that basically screws the consumer. If you harddisk dies out of warranty and you replace it you have no way to reload the software that come with the machine. Software that you have paid for. Also you are not getting use of the disk space that you paid for, some of it is taken up by the restore partition.

Ah, but like I said, I've already checked out the partition, and it contains nothing at all, not even a filesystem. Plus, they also have another partition that IS designated as a restore partition, and in fact I have had to boot from it - the first day we got this computer it had problems and I had to restore the whole system from a disk image, located on yet another partition which is definitely not the 2.5G one. Sorry I didn't clarify that further.

Whew!

Having cleared that up, I know that 2.5G is not much for a good Linux install. Fact is, I just want to have a minimal install with a basic system, and if I have to live without X, well I can. I'm more interested in being able to use the command line and write/compile programs more than anything right now. X would be nice, but if there's not enough disk real estate I'll just live with a distro that will at least detect the hardware and run. And then, I guess I'll try to take it from there. At this point, I'm just wondering if anyone else here has used a similar (or even identical) type of setup with the Inspiron. My first guess was that Dell may have switched to a different drive that had the 2.5 left over, and their disk image just left it there as a primary partition. Since it still has all of the space allotted and there appears to be nothing there, it just looked like a good candidate for a small Linux OS!

Well, DSL (Damn Small Linux) is a freq recommendation for tight installs. If you search that here at LQ, you'll prob get others as well (Vector?)

I will look into it. I'm also considering shrinking my Windows partition and just install a good size Linux distro, but I already tried using Partition Magic and it would not install on this machine at all. The boot manager is great, I just wish it would work on Vista.

Other than that, I suppose I could just use the Linux boot loader(s) to do the job, and I have done so before. BootMagic is really nice, though, it would really be good to have that available like it is on my other computer.

I should point out that Vista does not appear to like Linux at all. I've read accounts of computers turning into a pulp after trying to install Vista service pack 1 with GRUB already installed on the MBR...

I believe some people like gparted for partitioning.
But always defrag the MS section first.

Well, right now I'm waiting to find a way to keep using Vista and get another bootloader than overwrite the MBR with GRUB or LILO! I'd just as soon that Vista doesn't even know it has another OS anywhere on the system. I managed it with W2000 and others, but I was always able to use PM or something else that worked. So now, I'm just looking into options and considering trying to just use the 2.5G Partition and only install the things I really plan on using. Linux is just so much better with the high-speed internet, I can't wait to see how it will act on this laptop!

Perhaps you should wait until you can get an external USB drive and do a full backup.

JMO.

Probably a good idea, though Dell claims that they can back up all of your personal files and I think applications as well over the internet. If that turns out to be true, I would hope they could restore the system to its present state, I just have a few doubts as to how well that works. I intend to find out, though! (NOT by trial and error, but by researching and seeing if anyone else has done this)